Followup Albums to Grammys 1985

Bruce > Tina >>>> Richie >>> Prince >>>>>>>>>>>>> Lauper

Voting Bruce mainly on the strength of "Brilliant Disguise" and the fact that I cannot recall anything about the Cyndi or Prince records beyond the singles.

Bruce.

One of Tina's best imo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXXcKJ4psk0

I love that Tina song. Reminds me of the sort of stuff that played over movie credits in the '80s. Like Billy Ocean's "When the Going Gets Tough" (a Mutt Lange joint!). I wish "It's Only Love" was on this Tina record.

Huh, I didn't know Mark Knoplfer wrote "Private Dancer."

Anyway, I think Alfred's chart gets it right. The Bruce album is the only one that holds up as a real record. I like Lionel's faux reggae" Se La", though.

"Typical Male" is good. I don't remember any of the other singles from that album, though.

"Dancing on the Ceiling" seemed like such a dumb song at the time. I haven't thought about the lyric in years, & wonder today if Richie just thought, "hey, we could make a video with people on the ceiling! Let's write a song for that!"

I voted Bruce of course, Prince would be second, & then I guess Richie. I don't know anything but the singles off True Colors & I don't like them.

I have never understood Springsteen fandom. Dude is the musical equivalent of the color beige to me.

I'm obv voting Prince but pour one out for Ms Lauper

While I understand Bruce fandom, I don't get the love for Tunnel.

Around The World towers over it, for me.

I don't get that people don't get Bruce fandom, or "Tunnel of Love."

I do like the song "Tunnel of Love" a lot but Bruce has never been an artist I've felt compelled to add to my music collection.

Tunnel is half an album of great songs. Still, that's more than any of these others can boast.

are you fucking kidding me

I've said elsewhere on ILM that True Colors marked the first time an artist I'd adored betrayed me. The album is shit. "Change of Heart" is okay.

Haha Alfreds list is literally the exact reverse of mine

Oh wait except swap prince into first place and Lauper into second

Perhaps my favorite Prince song is on Around the World ("Pop Life"), but that does not make me love the album.

Oh wait except swap prince into first place and Lauper into second

what's the matter with your world

TS: a gruff white dude with a guitar vs psychedelic paisley pop-funk in a raspberry beret shaking a tambourine

tunnel of love is def the album i know the best. i don't like the title track but is true colors that bad? i like "change of heart"

Remember her cover of "What's Going On"?

Yes, I do.

Tunnel of Love is maybe Bruce's least gruff release of all, though.

What Prince did on Around the World he did far better on the two albums that followed.

btw Richie's singles:

Say You Say Me
title track
Love Will Conquer All
Ballerina Girl
Se La
Deep River Woman

"Tunnel of Love" is possibly the only Springsteen song I unequivocally love. "True Colors" after that.

What Prince did on Around the World he did far better on the two albums that followed.

that has nothing to do with how ATWIAD compares to albums that are not Parade or SOTT

Say You Say Me
title track

...that's where I stop caring.

how can "tunnel of love" be the only Springsteen song you love?

"Ballerina Girl" brought the lols when I was a kid, just because I couldn't believe I was hearing a song on the radio where someone was clumsily singing the phrase "balleriiiina gurl"

One Step Up and Brilliant Disguise eclipse everything else on Tunnel imo, but the rest of it ranges from very good to perfectly acceptable...which is a different line than every other album in this list toes.

tunnel of love is fantastic

i am listening to this cyndi lauper album right now and i like it fwiw

i intend to skip "true colors," of course

TOL is my favorite Springsteen album, by some distance.

"Love Will Conquer All" is the only Richie song I like from that roster.

Prince

I always feel sorry for the bridge to "Say You, Say Me", trapped in that horrifying shitshow of a dirge

I have never understood Springsteen fandom. Dude is the musical equivalent of the color beige to me.

^^^

I just write it off as some east coast thing. I don't know anyone born in California who gives a shit about Bruce.

sort of want to start a bruce springsteen geography poll now

If we're talking about what is almost implicit - biggest drop in quality after a culture-conquering 1985 Grammy nod record - then perhaps that underscores why the Prince is such a disappointment. I mean, I'm not sure what could have followed "Purple Rain," but this is the only record of the above bunch that willfully, erratically flouts expectations.

I had the cassette of Tunnel of Love as a teenager. for some reason the only song I can remember from it is "Spare Parts"

xp

xpost There may be some truth to that! But I don't know what Californians give a shit about at all. Huey Lewis?

yeah i am trying to think of californians who love bruce and am coming up empty. but i don't know that many californians.

California was Bruce's kryptonite! When he moved out there it all went sour. Then he moved back to New Jersey, married a Jersey girl, and got his mojo back.

Of course Californians love him. Who else would have nominated him?

If we're talking about what is almost implicit - biggest drop in quality after a culture-conquering 1985 Grammy nod record - then perhaps that underscores why the Prince is such a disappointment

I still say True Colors is. It's as if she decided to follow up SSU with an Atlantic Starr album.

But True Colors is just bad, not a perverse change in direction.

(Not that change in direction is bad, either: ToL stands in stark contrast to BitUSA.)

xpost There may be some truth to that! But I don't know what Californians give a shit about at all. Huey Lewis?

it's all Tupac and the Beach Boys out here

Yeah, SSU is really the only Lauper album where everything works. The ones that followed had great singles (sometimes), but so so so much filler.

Tupac and Beach Boys: the world's most specialized satellite radio station.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=5WP2exZurfc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnDR8OngS1U

But True Colors is just bad, not a perverse change in direction.

haha but it is! A Kelly-Steinberg ballad? A Marvin Gaye cover (not an obscurity btw)? The adult contemporary tameness of the whole thing?

Man, tracklist of "Private Dancer" is as nuts as "She's So Unusual."

so obv "around the world in a day"

If we're talking about what is almost implicit - biggest drop in quality after a culture-conquering 1985 Grammy nod record - then perhaps that underscores why the Prince is such a disappointment. I mean, I'm not sure what could have followed "Purple Rain," but this is the only record of the above bunch that willfully, erratically flouts expectations.

― Josh in Chicago, Friday, February 24, 2012 11:32 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i kinda feel like EVERY prince record, at least when he mattered, is erratic and flouts expectations, even the good ones. when i finally heard Around The World after seeing it kicked around for years i was like damn, this may not be top tier but it's totally of a piece with his output of that era.

If you can access this link, Billboard ran a front page story a week after ATWIAD's release about the frustration from programmers who didn't get a single and record store owners who weren't selling as many copies because Prince refused to release a single.

He relented the following week, hence "Raspberry Beret."

in the Twin Cities they just played the song "Paisley Park" on repeat until "Raspberry Beret" came out

it's so surreal to think about a major artist dropping an album without an advance single, which i guess was a little more common back then, living in the era of yearlong singles campaigns before the release date

Oh hai, remember me? I'm The King of Limbs.

i mean like an artist whose singles people actually care about and play on the radio

Just realized now this is for albums, not songs--my post way above referred only to songs.

Was "Raspberry Beret" a video before it was a single?

xps dance around it all you want, but Radiohead is still a major artist despite having no radio presence. I think something like that happens about as often now as it did in the 80s (which is, to say, rarely).

i know it's always been somewhat rare. i just mean that pre-SoundScan first week sales weren't everything so not having a blitz of advance singles wasn't necessarily a Radiohead-style act of defiance. even something as deliberately engineered to be a blockbuster as Born In The U.S.A. just had its first single released exactly a month before the album.

05. James Brown - “Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine” 517 votes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdyf8SuoGI0

was this the first time the word "sex" was used in a hit song title?

man if this single had appeared on Dancing on the Ceiling...

haha oops

Cyndi would have fun with that track

not to mention Tina.

I don't hear songs like "Rosalita" and "Hungry Heart" as being beige. They're kind of shiny.

We would not have "Tambourine" had it not been for “Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine”

Around The World in a Day by a wide margin

I don't know anyone born in California who gives a shit about Bruce.

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poor Lionel